Kohaku & Chihiro
by Arwen Imladviel
Summary: Chihiro is a college student, and everyone thinks she is ordinary: a sensible girl who reads a lot. But she has not forgotten the spirits, and Kohaku. (uncomplete)
1. Me, Chihiro

Kohaku & Chihiro  
  
By Arwen Imladviel  
  
'Shall we ever meet again?' 'I'm certain of it.'  
  
-Chihiro's and Kohaku's last words to each other in the movie 'Spirited Away'.  
  
One: Me, Chihiro  
  
I never returned to the forest road, never took a step past the ancient altars of spirits under the trees. Instead, I treasured my memories of flying while trying to keep my both feet firmly on the ground. My parents once suggested a picnic at the "old amusement park", as they called it. Luckily, it rained that day. Actually, I think it was more than luck. We were protected. By whom, I know not. Yubaba or her sister, maybe. Or the River God, whom I had helped. Someone, certainly. Later we were told the locals never go there. There are legends about ghosts. Older than the altars. I've even heard a story of invisible passengers stepping into the train at the nearest station, and leaving it at an unused one. That is a new story...  
  
I made many friends at my new school. One, Kyoko, is still my best friend. We now study at different colleges, but in the same town, so we meet now and then. Kyoko has a boyfriend, but I'm not jealous. They suit each other. I'm friends with her boyfriend too, and when Kyoko's parents don't want her to go somewhere alone with Yusaku, I get to be their chaperone. We've seen many good movies that way. Yusaku is a Star Wars - fan. He knows almost all the old movies by heart. Kyoko wants to be a comic artist. Or rather, she already is. She draws like a new Rumiko Takahashi. She is very interested in ghosts and aliens, and is drawing a story named 'The Mystic Train', about the spirit passengers.  
  
My second-best friend is a cat. His name is Yoshi. He is silver-grey and very silly. I say that because he loves plastic bags. He sleeps in them, but I'm sure he won't suffocate, because he rips them full of holes first. I still live with my parents, in the same house, except during school weeks when I stay at the dormitory. It's a boarding school, you see. Everyone thinks I'm ordinary. I read a lot, and I wear glasses nowadays. Kyoko says I'd look better with contact lenses, but I'm not sure I want to look any better. I mean I'm not ugly and I know it. I want to be taken seriously. For some reasons, people think girls with glasses are smart while, for example, girls with blonded hair are stupid. Also, boys leave serious girls alone. And until I meet a boy I'm interested in, I don't want any of the boys at the school to get interested in me. And I definitely don't want anyone to think I'm trying to steal Yusaku from Kyoko. If he went around with two fashionable girls intead of one such and another serious-looking, people could get weird ideas. In short, I like having friends much better than flirting. My parents think I'm a good student, but I'm only a little above the average. I love reading, but not always the school books. I plan to study arts and crafts and become a designer of some sort. Not clothes, maybe glass or jewellery. Or interior decoration. But certainly not Feng Shui. Nothing to do with magic. Both feet on the ground, Chihiro, remember...  
  
Kyoko does not know my secret. Nobody knows. People think that I love the river Kohaku so much because I spent my early childhood near it. It's a good explanation; I know Yusaku loves a village in the Hokkaido island that way, and my cousins say they could never live anywhere else than Tokyo. I love rivers in general as well, actually all waters. I'm saving money for a diving course. 


	2. The Magazine

Two: The Magazine  
  
A young man sat on a bench in a park. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. On the shirt there was an advertisement of "Aqua Fujiyama", a popular brand of mineral water. His shoes, however, vere old-fashioned japanese sandals. He was reading a magazine about manga comics. On the last pages there were the results of a New Talents' Competition. One page sample caught his eye. It was from the bronze-medal winner, Kyoko S., and it featured a train with two invisible passengers among ordinary ones. One of the invisibles was a child. The introduction read: "...based on a modern ghost-story Kyoko heard from a classmate when she was ten years old."  
  
The man took a "Swiss Army" -type pocket knife (made in Japan, naturally) and cut the page out with the tiny scissor blades. Then he closed the magazine. He stood up, and was about to pick his bag, when he saw the folded paper on the bench. He remembered it had been between the magazine. A poster of some sort. It featured a sexy female character who was wearing practically nothing. The name of the comic told she was suppoced to be a policewoman. He folded the poster and was about to put it in the trash can, when he saw tho backside was full of printed text. He sat back and started reading.  
  
"Reader's corner - questions and answers. Fan Art: Famous Bad Guys (and Girls)." Then a short info on the policewoman character. "Reader advertisements: Manga for sale... Manga wanted... Anime for sale... Anime wanted... Boys looking for pen-pals... Girls looking for pen-pals..." !  
  
"I'm a college student looking for anyone who likes Scuba Diving. I'm only a beginner and none of my friends is interested. I also like reading books and manga, and classical music. I have a cat. Yours, Chihiro."  
  
The pen-pal ads each had a number, and the staff of the magazine would send the letters forward.  
  
Chihiro's number was 77-474.  
  
Anyone could be named Chihiro, but magic numbers were seldom found by chance. It was like the Princess always ending up Empress in Mahjong, before she had met the Prince.  
  
Two sevens meet a threesome of two fours and a seven, making three sevens and two fours... Or twenty-nine, and the distance of two and nine is another seven... Also, four plus three is seven. To him, 77-747 read as "Your luck holds". To Chihiro, it would read as... ..."The circle is full, the time has come."  
  
He took a map from his bag. It was a map of the sky, with a turnable disc to show what stars were above Japan on any particular hour, day or night. Lines showed the paths of the planets, sun and moon. It was the only map he had ever needed to get where he wanted. And he had started needing it only recently.  
  
Scuba Diving. Salt water. Couldn't be helped. He'd better attend a course, to learn the technical terms. 


	3. Destiny?

**Three: Destiny?**

The dormitory was a very boring place. The girls were not allowed to put posters or pictures on the walls, which were a pale gray. Each bed had a similar bedcover of a darker gray, and the floor was brown and without carpets. The beds were high, European-style iron structures, not homely Japanese futons on the floor. Under each bed was a trunk for the personal belongings of the students. Beside each bed was a small desk and a chair. The only privacy the girls had was a lock on the top drawer of the desk. But even this was only an illusion of privacy: all the forty-eight keys belonging to forty-eight girls were identical. 

Chihiro sat at her desk and held a math book open in front of her. But what she was reading was a letter tucked between it. It was written very carefully in the kind of formal ideograms one usually saw only in holy texts and printed decorations. Each stroke of the brush was perfect, each word a piece of calligraphy art. Yet the paper was but a page torn from a notebook. 

"Dear Chihiro,  
I'm another beginner at Scuba Diving, I've only had a short course, but I love it already. It feels almost like flying, and the fishes are like dragon spirits...  
I've never been to college, instead I am working as a tourist guide. Before that I worked at an environmental organization, and I still do volunteer work when I have time to. At my job I have learned a lot about Japanese culture and history. I read a lot, but mostly manga. The more artistic and thoughtful sort, not the humorous or romantic, definitely not the science fiction and anarchistic. I live alone and I have few friends. It would not be respectable to ask you to meet me, but I hope we could write letters. I enclose a photo of myself, wearing my work outfit (which is rather more ceremonial than anyone in ancient Japan could have worn to work in). The woman beside me is my boss, Mrs. Saito. The landscape is near Fujiyama; the mountain was behind the guy who took the picture. 

Yours, Kohaku" 

Slowly Chihiro turned the pages and found the envelope she had hidden between them. There was indeed a photo inside it, and Chihiro's fingers trembled when she recognized a friend from long ago. 

Kohaku Nigihayami Nushi. 

Lord of the Kohaku River. A spirit-god. Haku, the apprentice sorcerer. The white dragon of the river. The boy who had saved her and whom she had saved. They had given each other their lost names. 

Chihiro looked at the tall young man in the picture. Handsome, yes. And human. 

A short-haired girl peered over Chihiro's shoulder.  
'Who is that?' She asked.  
'Akemi! This is a private letter!'  
'A love letter?'  
'No. It's from a friend.'  
'Him in the picture? If I were you...'  
'You're not, so mind your own business!'  
Akemi sat on her bed, the nearest one. When she saw her sulking Chihiro felt sorry for her and said:  
'Yes, it's from him, and his name is Kohaku.' 

Then she started solving her math problems, hiding the letter inside her pillow when Akemi had gone from the room. 


	4. Interlude: Kyoko Draws

**Interlude: Kyoko Draws**

Yusaku thinks that everything Kyoko draws is perfect. Even the drafts and the things that end up rolled into a ball in the wastepaper basket. 

Kyoko thinks. Then Kyoko draws. When she draws, she stops thinking. The pen dances on the paper. Kyoko never knows for sure what she is going to draw, until it is done. 

Now she is drawing a landscape. A river. A bridge. Two lovers standing on the railing of the bridge, the girl in a school uniform, the boy in old-fashioned shirt and trousers. Yusaku can see his wooden sandals. But he does not see their faces, for their backs are turned towards the watcher. They remind him of the boy and girl in that American movie. Titanic. Only they stood on the railing of a ship, not a bridge. 

What is Kyoko drawing? Herself and Yusaku? Someone else? 

Will the two lovers in the picture jump? Commit double suicide? 

They look like they could fly. Kyoko does fantasies sometimes. 

Yusaku lets his eyes wander around Kyoko's room. Suddenly he finds the girl in the picture. It is a photo of a girl standing on a beach, wearing a school uniform. She is young, too young to have a lover, but the uniform is the same, and her position. And Yusaku remembers the picture. Kyoko took it on a school trip. The girl is their friend. 

Chihiro. 

Yusaku does not disturb Kyoko while she draws. 

When she is done, she writes a little poem above the image. 

_'Sweet and slow, my love,  
is the river-water here  
where I first found you.'_

'There.' Kyoko sound satisfied. The image is beautiful, like a poster.  
'It's lovely.' Yusaku says, 'Who are they?'  
'She is Chihiro, and he is someone she will meet some happy day. Beside a river. I invented the poem first, and then I decided I would illustrate it, and give to her. It's her birthday soon.' 


End file.
